


No Such Thing As You Lost It All

by icewhisper



Series: Fight or Flight [3]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, Lewis Snart's A+ Parenting, M/M, Pre-Series, Wings AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-22 09:31:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11377410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icewhisper/pseuds/icewhisper
Summary: When Mick's family burned, his life went to pieces. Healing was a slower process with an apartment that was his as much as it wasn't and a partner that used his wings like a barrier between Mick and the world.





	1. Chapter 1

They burned. Everyone-

Mick's breath hitched and he pressed burning eyes closed to try and ward off the emotion that wanted to force its way free. Not here. Not now. He was released and cleared of any fault by the firemen that had put out the-

But he was still standing on the front steps of the Keystone police station as rain pelted down and made the near-November air colder. People stared at him, the same people he'd seen a thousand times, because he'd been in and out of that same station for years. Fires and fights and people trying to teach him a lesson that would never stick. They usually looked at him with tired exasperation, like they knew there was no setting him on the straight and narrow, but those looks had been traded out for anger and disgust and a fear that made Mick want to throw up. They knew what he'd done and they were scared of him, terrified that he was going to go after them next and watch while they burned.

They'd never look at him in another way again.

There was no coming back from this.

He stuck shaking hands in his pockets and just...walked. His feet carried him as his mind drifted, thinking of glorious flames that didn't feel so glorious after they'd taken his parents and his little siblings. He thought of their faces, smiling one second and what they must look like now—burned and blackened and  _ scared _ .

No one told him if any of them had woken up, if they'd known what was happening or if the smoke filled their lungs before awareness and pain ever hit them. He hoped they’d never woken up, hoped they hadn't known what was happening.

They might hate him if they did.

They  _ should _ hate him for what he did, but the dead don't hate. The dead don't feel anything.

He wanted to feel nothing, wanted to fly away and disappear into the flames in penance. For years, he'd told himself he'd burn one day, whether it was through a fire of his own creation or through a funeral parlor's oven, and he'd looked at it with a disturbing feeling of excitement, but he didn't think he deserved either option now. Let his body stay whole and leave it to rot in the ways that made his skin crawl and his stomach churn. Let that be a part of his punishment.

They said it wasn't his fault, that the fire he'd set outside had been put out and that it was their too-old space heater in his dad's office. His mom had hated that thing, insisted that it was a death trap with the way it shut down and came back to life on its own. The eerie red it used to glow when it did it used to fascinate him, like something hellish and holy at the same time was calling to him. It betrayed them all instead, sparked and caught, burning its way through his father's papers until it took the whole house.

It wasn't his fault, they'd told him. The old heater finally shorted out. He wasn't the one that started the fire.

It didn't make him feel better. He'd still left them behind to burn as he stared at the flames. In the moment, it had been beautiful, the way the fire broke through the windows and licked at the wood paneling. The way the roof tiles curled. The way the front porch collapsed.

He never heard anybody scream.

He didn't know if that would have been enough to shock him out of it.

His memory went blank there, clear as a bell right until something rustled behind him, and he didn't remember a damn thing until he opened his eyes and found himself clear on the other end of the fields. The cop's shrink said that he must have ran, traumatized when he realized what had happened and blocked out the memories. He wasn't sure he believed them, but he hadn't had any other explanation when he walked through the front doors of the police station with wet cheeks and stammering that he thought his family was dead.

He wished he'd been wrong.

He wished his mom had been there to sweep him up and into her chest and tell him they were fine, that they'd been scared he'd gotten hurt, but she wasn't there. She'd never be there again. None of them would be. No more Dad and his endless hopes that enough chores would tire him out too much to feel the urge for his lighter. No more Mom with her hot cocoa and those stupid little marshmallows and her gentle singing as she cooked. No more Lacey. No more Matt. No more Emma. No more Clara.

He wasn't a big brother anymore, he realized and felt his world fracture. He was supposed to protect the little ones—he'd  _ promised _ his parents he'd watch out for them—and he'd been the one to hurt them in the end. They'd deserved better than him. They'd deserved better than what they got.

He stubbed his toe on the front step of Len's apartment building and toppled forward. Concrete dug into his palms as he caught himself, skin tearing and blood rising up, but he stared at it without feeling anything. Not that. Not the bone-chilling cold he should have been feeling after walking from Keystone to Central in the pouring rain. He thought he might be in shock—maybe he still was.

He pulled the first door open as his hands trembled, but it was the secondary door that stayed locked. He hit the button for number nine and prayed that Len was there instead of at the house. He didn't have his key. Didn't think he had the brain power to navigate the streets to the house. He didn't even know how he managed to get  _ here _ .

But he was. Len's voice crackled over the shitty speaker and Mick didn't hear what he said, but the familiar voice was enough to get a strangled sob out of him.

"Mick?" It sounded like worry, that sharp and startled hitch to Len's voice, because he'd never been good with normal human emotions. He fumbled when Lisa cried and stuttered when Mick's siblings climbed on him.

Climbed. Past tense. Not anymore. Never again.

"They're dead," he choked out and thought a part of him may have died with it—may have died with  _ them _ —because he suddenly went from feeling nothing to feeling everything. It hurt, tore chunks out of him, and it was more than just his heart. It felt like he'd been hollowed out and left with nothing but an empty cavern, little more than a Thanksgiving turkey waiting to be stuffed.

He'd loved his mom's stuffing.

He was huddled on the floor when hands touched him. Someone was speaking, but he couldn't hear them over the blood rushing in his ears as his vision tunneled out. He couldn't breathe, couldn't even figure out which way was up and which way was down, but someone hefted him up onto his feet. Bony arms wrapped around him and some part of him knew it was Len, because no one had elbows as pointy and as painful as him, but he couldn't make his voice work. He didn't know what he would have said, anyway, throat too busy with trying to breathe between heavy sobs.

God, what had he done?

The world grayed out to nothing and he wasn't aware of anything for a long time. When he was, the first thing he thought was that his pillow sucked, sharp and painful in ways pillows had no business being. It took him until he opened his eyes and saw the familiar ratty sweater Len loved that he realized Len  _ was _ his pillow, that the warm blanket wrapped around him was both his partner's body heat and the soft wings he'd pulled closed around them. Closed them like he was protecting Mick from the world.

Somehow, that was enough to make his breath stick in his throat again, guilt eating at every bit of himself, because he didn't deserve to be protected after he'd left them to burn.

Fingers slipped into his hair, long and thin and working out the knots. Len didn't shush him or tell him it was okay. He didn't ask for any details. Mick may have told him somewhere between the sobs and the panic as his world fell to pieces, but he didn't remember and he wasn't going to be the one to bring it up. He just...lay there, using his partner as the universe's most uncomfortable body pillow and his wings as the oddest blanket.

They didn't talk, didn't breathe a word of anything until the knots were loose and Mick's hair had gone from wet to damp to dry. Somewhere in between that, he realized his clothes were gone, wet jeans, vest, and flannel swapped out for pajama pants that were too short and a sweatshirt he'd  _ known _ Len had stolen but never confronted him about. He didn't ask if he'd changed his own clothes or if Len had helped him through it. He didn't want to deal with the humiliation if it was the latter.

Len's wings ruffled when Mick shifted, probably cramped up and not ready to move yet. Or maybe Len was just being stubborn. Or nice. Len could be nice on occasion, weirdness losing out to hands that wanted to be gentle, even if they didn't always know how. Moments like that were reserved solely for Lisa. Mick wasn't sure how he felt about it being extended to him too, but he also wasn't stable enough to deal with it right then, so he pushed the thought away.

Len didn't say anything. He just stared, somehow softer than the calculating look he usually had—that same one Mick always had to remind him to stop using—and Mick squirmed under it as his eyes dropped down to his hands. He waited for the words, for Len to tell him that he'd helped him through the first wave of mourning and panic attacks, but that Mick was too dangerous for him to allow near Lisa. Six people were dead. If Lisa ever got hurt too...

"Should I order pizza?"

The question came out of nowhere, unsure and hesitant, and he fucking knew Len was horrible with human interaction, but that was something else. But Len also knew that Mick always defaulted to greasy, unhealthy pizza when he was in a bad place. He remembered and he acted like some weird computer trying to figure out how to respond to another human's sadness, because Len didn't know how to speak without using a tongue that was too sharp. Snark and banter wasn't something he was ready for.

"Is Chinese better?" Len tried, eyes wide like he'd said something wrong and broken some cardinal rule Mick didn't think even existed. It was probably mean, but the hint of panic in blue eyes pulled a laugh out of him that was lost between broken and hysterical. Inappropriate and definitely enough to make Len think he'd finally lost his goddamn mind, but he kept laughing until something in his chest loosened. Everything still felt tight and hollow and broken beyond repair, but it was like part of a bone sliding back into place.

He leaned over, head tipped sideways against the wall of wings still surrounding them. Feathers tickled against his temple, one brushing at the underside of his nose, and he huffed out a tired chuckle as the laughter faded off. "Thanks," he murmured as fingers reached up to touch the wing and straighten a feather that wasn't sitting straight.

Len sucked in a breath through his teeth and the wing-walls around them shuddered. "Was that a yes to Chinese?" he asked. Mick didn't mention that he sounded a little strangled.

"Pizza," he corrected and offered his friend as much of a smile as he could muster.

"Pizza," Len agreed.

Neither of them moved to make the order for a long time.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

They didn’t talk about it. Mick knew they should have, that all the juvie-appointed shrinks—and the one his parents had forced him to see in an attempt to control the pyromania—would have been preaching some shit about catharsis and mourning and the perils of bottling emotions. It didn’t change anything. They still didn’t talk about it and Mick was relieved for it. He wasn’t ready to do it, didn’t think he had it in him to make it through a conversation about his family and the six-person funeral.

His aunts and uncles paid for the services. No one asked him about the arrangements, sneering at him during the wakes and acting like he’d spread gasoline through the house. He let them stare and he let them sneer. He didn’t tell them he’d gone to the funeral home before the services and handed the director a bag stuffed to the brim. He didn’t tell them how Len stood by the door while he begged, rambling on about his siblings’ favorite stuffed animals and his parents’ bibles.

“They need them,” he pleaded as his eyes burned. “Please. I tagged everything. I just… _Please_ …”

The woman with her white-streaked hair pulled back too tight should have hated him the same way everyone else seemed to, but she gave him a sad smile and took the bag. She made promises that they’d be put into the caskets before they were sealed, that she’d see to it personally. He’d never know for sure if she did it—every last casket had been closed for the services—but she caught him when he was sitting alone in the middle of it all and squeezed his hand like he wasn’t a monster.

“Were they religious?”

He took a shaky drag of the cigarette and let out the breath. “Yeah.”

“Then, they would forgive you,” she told him gently, “for whatever you did or didn’t do that night. They would forgive, same as He would.”

That day, he cried in front of a woman he didn’t know and let her pray for all of them, because for once, the god he’d always seen in the flames wasn’t the one he needed.

Len was waiting for him when he went back inside even though Mick knew the Catholicism of it all made him feel like an outsider. It didn’t change that he was there or that he sat next to Mick during the long mass. It didn’t change the fact that he heard Len murmuring Hebrew under his breath, saying his own prayers as they said theirs. He was there for all of it.

“Thank you,” he murmured when he followed Len and Lisa back to the truck instead of to the limo the rest of his family was taking to the cemetery.

Len nodded, but he didn’t push it either. He’d been quiet since Mick came to the apartment that first night, more cautious about what he said and letting the silence hang when Mick needed it. It wasn’t something Len was good at—he was a rambler and a damn motor mouth by nature—but he learned the cues. When Mick needed silence, he stayed there as a quiet support. When Mick needed noise, he rambled about anything that came to mind.

Mick never saw Len cry for them, though. He supposed he could have done it somewhere private, trying to spare him the pain and the guilt in watching Len mourn too, but it was also just as possible that Len didn't cry at all. He'd never been good with emotions, even more stunted in that department than Mick was. He wasn’t sure if he was grateful for the lack of tears or not.

He reached for Len’s hand when they got to the cemetery and Len let him. He hated touch—Mick could feel the tension just as much as he could see it in the lines of the suit jacket—but he squeezed Mick’s hand back and let him hold on as tight as he needed to. Bones ground together as the priest spoke, uncomfortable and painful, but neither one of them pulled away.

Six holes in the ground. Four caskets that were too small. Place cards with names, because the oversized gravestone wasn’t ready yet.

They laid them to rest as the rain and wind whipped around them and, privately, Mick was grateful for the way it hid the tears on his cheeks.

Lisa sobbed into his chest and he held her with the hand that wasn’t clinging to her brother. He murmured apologies to her as his breath caught in his throat. Emma had been her best friend. His siblings were damn near her only friends.

He hated himself a little more with every sob.

 

 

“You can go,” he told Len after the services were over and people had begun to retreat back to their cars for the trip to the mercy meal. They weren’t going to it, warned off by his Aunt Rebecca and harsh words that they couldn’t keep him away from the funerals—“God rest her soul, my sister would never forgive me for that.”—but that was where it ended. They never wanted to hear from him again, not a single one of them.

“We’re staying,” Len said and they said goodbye without hateful, prying eyes.

They watched every last casket get lowered into the ground, but by the third, Mick was kneeling in the mud and crying all over again.

Len let him press his face into his belly and kept murmuring in Hebrew.

 

 

They went back to the apartment and he didn’t get out of bed for a week.

He ate when Len forced him to—always fast food crap, because Len in the kitchen was a guaranteed disaster—and slept when he was alone. Len joined him at night and rambled about nothing until Mick drifted off again.

They didn’t talk about the times that they woke up entangled together, because there was nothing romantic about them or about the dampness that still ended up on Mick’s cheeks.

The humor left them for a long time, buried down beneath the pain and the loss and how lost Mick became. He drank too much and scared himself into sobriety when he started screaming at Len one night with whiskey-scented breath and balled fists.

The fear on Len’s face alone was enough to make him vomit and even though he’d never thrown a punch, he still apologized for days.

Len said it was fine.

They both pretended it was the truth.

 

 

“Do you think your mom’s still alive?” he asked one day as he poked at his lo mein with chopsticks. He saw Len tense in his peripheral and damn well knew it was dangerous territory. What little he knew about Len’s mom was limited to the story he’d gotten in juvie years ago. After that, they’d closed the book on the topic and never touched it again, like they understood it was taboo.

But he asked and he didn’t take it back. He raised his eyes towards Len instead and waited until the other teen forced himself to relax.

“I don’t know,” Len replied after a while and laid his fork down like he’d suddenly lost his appetite. “I don’t think about her much.”

“Would you forgive her if she came back?”

“It’s not the same.” And, damn, but Len knew what Mick wasn’t asking. He could see it on his face. “We cared about them too, you know. Lisa and me.”

“I know you did,” he said, even as a lump formed in his throat.

“We forgave you,” he told him and didn’t mention the way Mick’s hands shook. “I forgave my mom, because leaving me with Lewis meant I got Lisa.”

“So why forgive me? What do you get out of it?” he asked, because he knew Len. He didn’t forgive people out of the goodness of his heart. He forgave because something benefitted him in the end that outweighed the hurt of everything else.

“You,” Len said so bluntly that it was like a punch to the gut. Mick felt the air rush from his lungs and he met Len’s gaze with his own wide eyes. “We’re not heroes, Mick. If you’d been in that house, you would have burned too.”

“But-”

“You weren’t supposed in there,” Len said firmly, staring at him with eyes that seemed almost too blue. “You aren’t done yet.”

He could feel the argument and the bitterness twisting in his chest, but they never made their way up his throat. He stared at Len instead, crammed as they were on a couch that was too small, and he just…believed him. Len was weird, always had been. He had this strange intensity to him that made most people skitter away. It had done the same to Mick in the beginning. His oddness used to leave Mick wondering if the headaches were worth it or if he was just stuck with some half-sociopathic nutcase as a best friend, but he got used to it. He learned the quirks and saw the intensity for what it was; Len holding onto the few things he actually cared about.

Lisa.

Perfecting a heist.

Mick.

“You forgave me, because I didn’t burn too?” he asked, voice hesitant and soft.

“Yes.”

It wasn’t the answer he’d been looking for. He didn’t think anybody else would consider it a real answer at all, but he saw the firm set of Len’s jaw and heard the conviction in his voice. He was a crazy little weirdo that didn’t make sense in human terms, but he’d given Mick something his own blood hadn’t been able to fathom offering him. He forgave him—him and Lisa both—and it was enough for right then. Not always, he knew, because he knew his own head and knew how he’d spiral on the bad days, but in that moment, it was good enough.

 

 

The nightmares still came.

He woke up some nights in a panic, eyes darting around in the dark and expecting to see fire melting his mother’s skin or lighting up Matt’s shaggy hair, but the room was dark. No flames. No death. No screams except his own.

Len woke up every time, muttering and really only half-awake, but he’d wriggle until his wings slipped through the slits in the back of his shirt.

Wing-walls and body heat lulled Mick back to sleep.

He didn’t dream.

Those walls were still around them both one morning when he woke up to Len sleeping on his chest. He smiled softly at the sight, the peaceful face and the close-cropped hair that scratched against his skin. He was still scrawny, too bony to be healthy, but it was like he’d grown into his wings instead of the long limbs that had sprouted with the last growth spurt. It made him look even more like the fallen angel Mick had considered him the first time he saw the wings, all pretty feathers and hard angles. It was nice, he thought, but not something he’d ever tell Len. The little shit was vain enough as it was.

“You’re staring,” Len mumbled before he even actually woke up, because he was a freak that just knew things.

“I’m allowed to stare when you make me a pillow,” Mick said with a hint of a grin. “You’re still too bony.”

“So fatten me up.”

“I’ve been _trying_.”

Len huffed and finally opened his eyes, chin propped up high on Mick’s chest. Tiny smiles and wing-walls that shouldn’t have been normal or as comforting as they were. He called it their little hideaway sometimes, months after the fire and when he’d started to see them as the sanctuary they were instead of something he didn’t deserve. Len’s wings were something special and he’d asked once if Len ever made the walls with Lisa.

He didn’t and he didn’t have any explanation for why he’d done it with Mick.

He stroked a wing softly just to see the way they shook in response.

“I told you to stop doing that,” Len grumbled, sounding choked.

“I told you to stop sleeping on me,” he shot back and thought he was very thoughtful for not mentioning the way Len shifted on top of him. “We need another bed.”

“I like this one.”

“It’s mine. I live here.”

“I stole it,” he argued and Mick laughed, because Len couldn’t even get a damn mattress honestly. He could only imagine how he’d stolen it.

“I’m gonna build you a birdhouse,” he told him and trailed fingertips lightly down the line between Len’s wings. “Nice little perch and everything.”

Len pinched him like a little shit. “You are not.”

“I could. I’m good with my hands.”

“I can feel that,” Len drawled and there was a grin until there wasn’t. Blue eyes went wide as pale skin went paler. He scrambled away from Mick, falling over his own wings as he did. Something hit the floor, but Mick didn’t get up to see what it was, because he was too busy staring.

Oh.

_Oh_.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Things got awkward.

They talked sometimes, but only when Lisa was there or in grunted, uncomfortable words when Len spent too much time with blueprints and Mick had to literally shove food at him. They didn’t talk about Len’s slip of the tongue or that someone had finally—sort of—put into words the strange little dance they’d been doing for a while.

His mother— _God_ , he missed her—would have smiled that I-told-you smile she’d picked up years ago. She’d always been overly accepting of Len and he knew part of it was that she’d seen Len and thought _this kid needs a good adult in his life_ , but he wondered if another part of it had been her seeing something he hadn’t. She’d given all those speeches after Len started wearing that ring that had been the farthest thing from subtle.

He should have felt comforted that she would have been okay with it, but he ended up having a panic attack in the bathroom instead.

Len didn’t mention it and neither did he.

They still shared the bed, bodies stiff and careful not to touch. Len stretched his wings out too far and the wing-walls weren’t the comforting thing they’d turned into anymore. Mick didn’t sleep peacefully when they came down around him. He didn’t sleep at all. He didn’t think either of them did.

It was a breath of relief when Len went back to the house that was followed quickly by guilt, because he shouldn’t be happy about his friend going back to that place. He’d come back with bruises, the same way he always did and Lisa’s eyes would be red from crying. The worst times were when she came back with bruises too and Mick wanted to throw up, fingers itching for his lighter.

He would have burned Lewis for them and not lost a day of sleep over it.

Len used to look amused when Mick would say it, like he understood it was Mick’s way of saying he cared. Now, when he said it, Len just looked sad.

He stopped saying it.

“Are you and Lenny mad at each other?” Lisa asked him one day when Len was on a job with Lewis and it was just them in the apartment.

He scooped some mac and cheese—not boxed, because unlike the Snarts, he had a fucking _pallet_ —onto a plate for her. “No.”

“You don’t talk anymore.”

“We talk.”

“Do not,” she said, but she shoveled some food into her mouth and it shut her up for a minute. “You both keep looking at each other like someone kicked someone’s puppy, but none of us have a dog.”

“We’re fine.”

“Is it because Lenny has a crush on you?” she asked, head tilted, and Mick promptly choked.

“ _What_?”

She rolled her eyes. “ _Duh_. Even Dad knows. Why do you think Lenny doesn’t let you come to the house?” He’d _thought_ it was because Len didn’t want to risk him losing his temper with Lewis. The truth just made his chest hurt. “And he shares the bed with you-”

“You’re in the other bed.”

“There’s a couch,” she said and looked way too old with the way she arched her eyebrow. “You guys cuddle when you sleep.”

It wasn’t even a lie. He dropped his head into his hands.

“I keep telling him you love him too.”

“ _What_?”

“Boys are dumb,” she sighed to herself, but Mick couldn’t find it in him to be offended. Apparently, he was dumber than he thought he was. “You look at him all funny and you’re always feeding him-”

“Because he’s too skinny.” And, wow, that was a weak argument, wasn’t it? “I feed you too,” he reminded her and waved a hand at the bowl she was still making her way through. “That mean I’m in love with you too?”

“Ew, no. That would be creepy.”

At least they were on the same page with _that_. “How the hell did we skip from crush to love, anyway?” Because Len, Mick, and love were not words that should be strung into the same sentence, not when he’d limited himself to thinking that Len might just be a fun roll in the hay. Thinking about attaching more to it... “Can we go back to crush? Crush makes me not want to throw myself out a window.” Though, it did make him want to bash his head against the wall.

“But you love each other.”

“Stop saying love.”

“Stop being dumb,” she returned. “It’s making Lenny sad.”

“Not like I can talk to him. He hasn’t come around,” he said and frowned when she started to fidget guiltily. “Lisa?”

“What?”

“Spill it.”

“Lenny will get mad.” she tried, but her shoulders sagged a moment later. “He...might be avoiding here for a second reason.”

“Lisa.”

“Dad broke his arm.”

Mick went stiff, hands curling into fists as he tried to remember how long it had been since he’d even seen Len. He’d been dropping Lisa off randomly to get her away from the house while the planning was going down, but he’d never come up to the apartment. Lisa just kept slinking inside with Len’s set of keys and he’d figured the other guy was just avoiding him a little extra, because the last time they shared the bed had gotten...uncomfortably close.

“Don’t get mad,” she said, but it sounded like she was pleading. She knew he wouldn’t hurt Len, that was why she’d always found it funny to get him in trouble with Mick before, but she looked scared then.

“I’m not mad at Len,” he lied, because he was mad. The little shit had gotten hurt—and his dad had him on a fucking _job_ —and he’d hidden it from Mick, because… Why? Things were awkward? It was awkward when people thought they were fourteen and hanging a sheet to get busy. “He’s just an idiot.”

“That sounds like you’re mad.”

“Is your brother an idiot?”

“Well, yeah…”

“Then, I’m not wrong.” He sighed. “Finish your dinner. We can toss in a movie after.”

He put Lisa to bed after two mind-numbing hours of Honey, I Shrunk The Kids and waited until her pager beeped its signal for her to meet Len downstairs. He slipped out, pink pager held in his fist and repeating a mantra to stay calm. It was working real well, right up until he made it to the front steps and saw Len standing under a dirty street light. He spotted the cast first, big and bulky on his left arm, and doodled on by what had to be Lisa. The bruises came after; the black eye (fresh), the mark on his jaw (healing), the circles under his eyes (constant).

“Mick-”

“You. Upstairs. Now.”

“Lisa-”

“-is asleep in her room. Move your ass before I carry you upstairs.” He would if he had to, but he’d rather not. Len was standing like something hurt and Mick couldn’t tell if it was his ribs or his leg.

Len opened his mouth to argue, but just like his sister, his shoulders sagged. Defeat. Resignation. Whatever he wanted to call it, he dragged his scrawny ass up the stairs and past where Mick was holding the door open.

“Where’s your dad?”

“Spending his cut.”

Mick didn’t ask about Len’s cut, because Len never got a cut. “He gonna notice if you’re gone?”

“No.”

“You need a hospital?”

“No.”

Mick nodded stiffly, silent until they made it back to the apartment. He kept a close eye on Len, hands ready to catch him if he needed to, but Len—the stubborn shit that he was—made it through the door and to the couch on his own. “Ribs or leg? And don’t say you’re fine.”

Len stared at him for a long moment, evaluating something Mick couldn’t begin to fathom. Finally, he sighed. “My back,” he muttered. “I think he dislocated something in the wing.”

Mick was going to kill Lewis. Fire was too good for him—and too personal after what happened six months ago—but he’d settle for maiming him some other way. He was more okay with it when Len mumbled something about Lewis kicking him where his wings usually slip out.

Maybe hot pokers.

“I can’t get the right one to extend out,” Len admitted reluctantly.

Yeah. Hot pokers sounded nice.

He shuffled Len off to the bedroom while plotting great ways to kill Lewis Snart, but he hadn’t fully settled on one method when he finally got Len to slide out of his shirt. His eyes moved over familiar and unfamiliar scars, anger growing, and circled around behind him. “Try and get your wings out.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I lived on a farm,” Mick told him stiffly, as if Len needed the reminder. “We had chickens-”

“I’m not a chicken.”

“I’ve set a wing before. Come on. As much as you can.”

As much as he could didn’t turn out to be much. The left one came out more or less as it usually did, but the right one only made it halfway out of his back before it seemed to lock up at a strange angle. Dislocated, he thought, but he couldn’t tell for sure.

“We gotta get the rest out,” he told him gently as he laid a hand between the wings. “It’s gonna hurt.”

“Great pep talk,” Len said dryly.

“Yeah, yeah. Shut up.”

Len damn near bit through his lip trying to keep quiet as Mick helped him work the other wing free. Even out, it stayed bent at angles that made Mick cringe. He couldn’t tell if anything was broken, but probing fingers found two dislocated joints that he had to reset.

Len whimpered—actually fucking _whimpered_ —when he did it and Mick hated himself a little bit.

“I’m fine,” Len insisted through clenched teeth, but he still took the aspirin Mick pressed into his hand.

“Uh-huh. Sleep on your stomach and keep your wings out. You shouldn’t be trying to close them up yet.”

Len mumbled something that sounded like a thank you and lifted his good wing a little, but it took Mick frowning at it and Len very pointedly not looking at him for him to realize his partner was offering him his usual side of the bed. Habit—fuck, habit, it was his own stupid head—made him want to slip in next to Len and take the odd little olive branch the guy was holding out.

Lisa’s words stopped him right as he started running his fingers over soft feathers and he dropped his hand. “I’m gonna sleep on the couch,” he said, voice rough.

Len finally lifted his head then, face lined with pain and confusion and a little bit of hurt that made Mick want to say fuck it and slide right under the stupid wing. “Mick-”

“You’re hurt.”

“Not the first time I’ve been injured.”

“First time it was your wing.”

Len’s brows furrowed more. “Unless you plan on rolling on top of me, I don’t see a problem.” Mick choked at the same moment Len seemed to realize what he’d said, because both their faces went red and Len turned his head away before he pushed himself up with the arm that wasn’t in a cast. “Never mind. I’m going home.”

“Bull shit you are. Try and I’ll knock you back on your ass,” he warned and hoped he wouldn’t have to follow through. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d solved problems with their fists, but not while Len was this banged up. Their fights were different and Len wasn’t scared of him. He looked a little scared of him right then, though, a little scared and a lot ashamed and— “Fuck,” he muttered as things slid into place. “You think I-”

“Don’t-”

“ _That’s_ why you’re not coming around anymore?” he asked, baffled, because it wasn’t like it had been all Len. The last time they’d shared the bed—the last time Len had brought his scrawny ass inside his own damn apartment—they’d woken up with brains that were too foggy to care how much they were wrapped up together. He’d almost… Len had almost… Someone had almost kissed someone before morning breath seemed to wake them both up the rest of the way and Len had rushed out of there before Mick could think of suggesting they just brush their teeth first. But Len couldn’t have thought Mick was mad about that.

Except, the look on his face said Len was having one of his stupid moments where he didn’t understand humans or their emotions, so fuck trying to pretend he was one. Mick swore under his breath. “Lenny-”

“It’s fine.”

“Would you stop fucking interrupting me?” he snapped and sat down on the edge of the bed. Len inched away from him a bit, good wing curling in while the other one just kind of hung there, and Mick reached out to touch the good one. “For the smart one, you’re a damn idiot sometimes, you know that?”

“Am I allowed to speak, then?” Len asked, but the dry tone sounded a little choked. It might have been because Mick was stroking the tip of the wing or because they didn’t do the emotions-talk kind of thing, but the bigger chance was that his weirdo partner was starting to malfunction like a shitty computer. Bright side, he hadn’t defaulted to the creepy calculating look he usually did, so Mick was counting it as a win.

“No,” he replied and pulled in a breath. “You’re my partner.”

“I know that.”

He gave the wing a flick. “Stop talking. I’m trying to say I’d be good if we tacked on some extra shit to it.” He raised an eyebrow when Len actually managed to keep his mouth shut for once, but Len was just staring at him like his brain had shorted out. “I coulda been sleeping on the couch,” he added, because Lisa had had a point there. “Wouldn’t have been sharing a bed with you if I didn’t want to. I’m just not into macking on people with morning breath.”

Len’s mouth opened, gaping and searching for words, and it might have been cute if Mick was better about doing the whole feelings-talk. He wasn’t and his back stayed tense. “Okay,” he said finally, as if that answered anything. He was really starting to wonder if he’d broken Len. Lisa was going to kill him.

“Okay?”

Len nodded, stiff.

“Permission to talk, Lenny. Humans need words. If you don’t want this-”

“I do.”

Mick nodded and abandoned the wing to brush his fingers against Len’s cheek instead. He wasn’t sure Len had fully wrapped his head around jack shit, because he was still staring at Mick with eyes that were too wide and hadn’t made some smartass comment about Mick giving him permission to speak, but he did shift a little closer to Mick. A few inches closed between them and the world didn’t end. He saw the relief flicker across Len’s face.

Movies said that was the point where they kissed and everything faded to black, and he knew that was what Len was expecting. He kept glancing down at Mick’s lips like he was waiting, because he always seemed to take real-life cues from the dumbest movies Mick had ever seen. He’d forgotten those flicks had never been Mick’s speed. “Then, heal up,” he told him instead and watched Len’s face fall a little. He inched in closer, still too far away to kiss, but close enough that Len’s breath hitched. “I’m not kissing a giant bruise.”

(Len ended up straddling his hips while they made out, because Mick’s self-control was shit.

It was worth it.)

The End


End file.
